Click Banner For More Info See All Sponsors

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!

This site is now closed permanently to new posts.
We recommend you use the new Townsy Cafe!

Click anywhere but the link to dismiss overlay!

Page 43 of 162 FirstFirst ... 33 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 53 93 143 ... LastLast
Results 1,261 to 1,290 of 4857

  • Share this thread on:
  • Follow: No Email   
  • Thread Tools
  1. TopTop #1261
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To The Collector of Taxes, City and County
    of San Francisco


    No, there is no dog, terrier, male, dog's name Pedro
    at this address. Pedro is in San Anselmo.


    So I do not owe you the $4.00 license fee
    (raised by the Supervisors to $5.00) I wish I did.


    Is the point of being a poet to clean your plate,
    use up things, make every loss valuable?


    And when the last loss has been made valuable
    disappear like night into the crouching wood?


    I like you because you are such a plain image. You seem to say
    if I pay my tax there is something I can own


    for another year. There's nothing. There's no dog.
    But thank you for even suggesting that there is.


    - William Dickey
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  2. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  3. TopTop #1262
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    A Music


    I employ the blind mandolin player
    in the the tunnel of the Mètro. I pay him
    a coin as hard as his notes,
    and maybe he has employed me, and pays me
    with his playing to hear him play.


    Maybe we're necessary to each other,
    and this vacant place has need of us both
    ––it's vacant, I mean, of dwellers,
    is populated by passages and absences.


    By some fate or knack he has chosen
    to place his music in this cavity
    where there's nothing to look at
    and blindness costs him nothing.
    Nothing was here before he came.


    His music goes out among the sounds
    of footsteps passing. The tunnel is the resonance
    and meaning of what he plays.
    It's his music, not the place, I go by.


    In this light which is just a fact, like darkness
    or the edge or end of what you may be
    going toward, he turns his cap up on his knees
    and leaves it there to ask and wait, and holds up
    his mandolin, the lantern of his world;


    his fingers make their pattern on the wires.
    This is not the pursuing of rhythm
    of a blind cane pecking in the sun,
    but is a singing in a dark place.


    - Wendell Berry
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  4. Gratitude expressed by:

  5. TopTop #1263
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Reckoning


    All profits disappear: the gain
    Of ease, the hoarded, secret sum;
    And now grim digits of old pain
    Return to litter up our home.


    We hunt the cause of ruin, add,
    Subtract, and put ourselves in pawn;
    For all our scratching on the pad,
    We cannot trace the error down.


    What we are seeking is a fare
    One way, a chance to be secure:
    The lack that keep us what we are,
    The penny that usurps the poor.


    - Theodore Roethke
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  6. TopTop #1264
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Great American Poem


    If this were a novel,
    it would begin with a character,
    a man alone on a southbound train
    or a young girl on a swing by a farmhouse.


    And as the pages turned, you would be told
    that it was morning or the dead of night,
    and I, the narrator, would describe
    for you the miscellaneous clouds over the farmhouse


    and what the man was wearing on the train
    right down to his red tartan scarf,
    and the hat he tossed onto the rack above his head,
    as well as the cows sliding past his window.


    Eventually—one can only read so fast—
    you would learn either that the train was bearing
    the man back to the place of his birth
    or that he was headed into the vast unknown,


    and you might just tolerate all of this
    as you waited patiently for shots to ring out
    in a ravine where the man was hiding
    or for a tall, raven-haired woman to appear in a doorway.


    But this is a poem, not a novel,
    and the only characters here are you and I,
    alone in an imaginary room
    which will disappear after a few more lines,


    leaving us no time to point guns at one another
    or toss all our clothes into a roaring fireplace.
    I ask you: who needs the man on the train
    and who cares what his black valise contains?


    We have something better than all this turbulence
    lurching toward some ruinous conclusion.
    I mean the sound that we will hear
    as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen.


    I once heard someone compare it
    to the sound of crickets in a field of wheat
    or, more faintly, just the wind
    over that field stirring things that we will never see.


    - Billy Collins
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  7. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  8. TopTop #1265
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Mystery


    Some come at it
    with weights and measures,
    some waving a sieve.


    Some sing to it,
    ballads and carols,
    hoping to coax forth
    its hidden center,
    unwind the sheath
    of who it is.


    Some tap on it
    or deal heavy blows
    with hammers,
    trying to smash
    its thick shield
    force it to bow down.


    some seek ways to clamber in,
    explore its hidden vaults
    and chambers.


    Some lie down beside it,
    breathe its cool scent,
    become its own self.


    - Dorothy Walters
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  9. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  10. TopTop #1266
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Nobodies

    We are not, but could be.
    We don't speak languages, but dialects.
    We don't have religions, but superstitions.
    We don't create art, but handicrafts.
    We don't have culture, but folklore.
    We are not human beings, but human resources.
    We do not have faces, but arms.
    We do not have names, but numbers.
    We do not appear in the history of the world,
    but in the police blotter of the local papers.
    The nobodies, who are not worth
    the bullets that kill them.


    - Eduardo Galeano
    (from The Book of Embraces)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  11. Gratitude expressed by 4 members:

  12. TopTop #1267
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Spring Azures


    In spring the blue azures bow down
    at the edges of shallow puddles
    to drink the black rain water.
    Then they rise and float away into the fields.


    Sometimes the great bones of my life feel so heavy,
    and all the tricks my body knows―
    the opposable thumbs, the kneecaps,
    and the mind clicking and clicking—


    don’t seem enough to carry me through this world
    and I think: how I would like


    to have wings—
    blue ones—
    ribbons of flame.


    How I would like to open them, and rise
    from the black rain water.


    And then I think of Blake, in the dirt and sweat of London—a boy
    staring through the window, when God came
    fluttering up.


    Of course, he screamed,
    and seeing the bobbin of God’s blue body
    leaning on the sill,
    and the thousand-faceted eyes.


    Well, who knows.
    Who knows what hung, fluttering, at the window
    between him and the darkness.


    Anyway, Blake the hosier’s son stood up
    and turned away from the sooty sill and the dark city—
    turned away forever
    from the factories, the personal strivings,


    to a life of the the imagination.




    - Mary Oliver
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  13. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  14. TopTop #1268
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Discovery Of Daily Experience


    It is a whisper. You turn somewhere,
    hall, street, some great even: the stars
    or the lights hold; your next step waits you
    and the firm world waits - but
    there is a whisper. You always live so,
    a being that receives, or partly receives, or
    fails to receive each moment's touch.


    You see the people around you - the honors
    they bear - a crutch, a cane, eye patch,
    or the subtler ones, that fixed look, a turn
    aside, or even the brave bearing: all declare
    our kind, who serve on the human front and earn
    whatever disguise will take them home. (I saw
    Frank last week with his crutch de guerre.)


    When the world is like this - and it is -
    whispers, honors or penalties disguised - no wonder
    art thrives like a pulse wherever civilized people,
    or any people, live long enough in a place to
    build, and remember, and anticipate; for we are
    such beings as interact elaborately with what
    surrounds us. The limited actual world we successively
    overcome by fictions and by the mind's inventions
    that cannot be quite arbitrary (and hence do reflect
    the actual), but can escape the actual (and hence
    may become art).



    - William Stafford
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  15. TopTop #1269
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I Remember The People

    High above the roaring Klamath
    in quiet meditation under the forest roof,
    sitting on a river stone massively heavy
    a round stone carried there by strong men
    to make a circular stone foundation
    to form a circular shelter
    to create a circular village
    to live a circular life
    under the circles of eagle and osprey
    under the circles of sun and moon.

    Time circles the place I sit.
    The forest and all its living things
    continue making circles
    covering and concealing
    taking back to the earth
    taking back to the river
    the work of generations
    of The People.

    Scooped circles in the earth
    and massively heavy stones
    all that mark their passing.

    One day, the stones too
    will disappear.
    Even now, In memorial
    a circular tear
    disappears from my bare leg.

    - Doug von Koss
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  16. TopTop #1270
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Oatmeal


    I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
    I make it on the hot plate and put steamed milk on it.
    I eat it alone.
    I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
    Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if someone eats it with you.
    That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
    Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.
    Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal--porridge, as he called it--with John Keats.
    Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him: due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, and unusual
    willingness to disintegrate, oatmeal must never be eaten alone.
    He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat it with an imaginary companion,
    and he himself had enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
    Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as wholesome as Keats claims, still you can learn something from it.
    Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the "Ode To a Nightingale."
    He had a heck of a time finishing it--those were his words--"Oi'ad a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through his porridge.
    He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his pocket,
    but when he got home, he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they made some
    sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if they got it right.
    An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket through a hole in the pocket.
    He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
    and the way here and there a line will go into the configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up and peer about, and then
    lay itself down slightly off the mark, causing the poem to move forward with God's own reckless wobble.
    He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
    I would not have known about any of this except for my reluctance to eat oatmeal alone.
    When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
    He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
    He didn't offer much of a story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there is much of one.
    But he did say the sight of a just harvested oat field got him started on it.
    And two of the lines, "For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
    came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
    I can see him--drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into its glimmering furrows, muttering--and it occurs to me:
    maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of amnions tatters.
    For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
    I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneously gummy and crumbly,
    and therefore I am going to invite Patrick Kavanaugh to join me.


    - Galway Kinnell
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  17. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  18. TopTop #1271
    Claire's Avatar
    Claire
     

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Oh, that is wonderful!
    Thank you from the bottom of my lonely bowl of porridge.

    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Oatmeal


    I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
    I make it on the hot plate and put steamed milk on it.
    I eat it alone.
    I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.
    Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if someone eats it with you.
    That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
    Possibly it is even worse to eat oatmeal with an imaginary companion.
    Nevertheless, yesterday morning, I ate my oatmeal--porridge, as he called it--with John Keats.
    Keats said I was absolutely right to invite him: due to its glutinous texture, gluey lumpishness, hint of slime, and unusual
    willingness to disintegrate, oatmeal must never be eaten alone.
    He said that in his opinion, however, it is perfectly OK to eat it with an imaginary companion,
    and he himself had enjoyed memorable porridges with Edmund Spenser and John Milton.
    Even if eating oatmeal with an imaginary companion is not as wholesome as Keats claims, still you can learn something from it.
    Yesterday morning, for instance, Keats told me about writing the "Ode To a Nightingale."
    He had a heck of a time finishing it--those were his words--"Oi'ad a 'eck of a toime," he said, more or less, speaking through his porridge.
    He wrote it quickly, on scraps of paper, which he then stuck in his pocket,
    but when he got home, he couldn't figure out the order of the stanzas and he and a friend spread the papers on a table, and they made some
    sense of them, but he isn't sure to this day if they got it right.
    An entire stanza may have slipped into the lining of his jacket through a hole in the pocket.
    He still wonders about the occasional sense of drift between stanzas,
    and the way here and there a line will go into the configuration of a Moslem at prayer, then raise itself up and peer about, and then
    lay itself down slightly off the mark, causing the poem to move forward with God's own reckless wobble.
    He said someone told him that later in life Wordsworth heard about the scraps of paper on the table, and tried shuffling some stanzas of his own, but only made matters worse.
    I would not have known about any of this except for my reluctance to eat oatmeal alone.
    When breakfast was over, John recited "To Autumn."
    He recited it slowly, with much feeling, and he articulated the words lovingly, and his odd accent sounded sweet.
    He didn't offer much of a story of writing "To Autumn," I doubt if there is much of one.
    But he did say the sight of a just harvested oat field got him started on it.
    And two of the lines, "For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells" and "Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours,"
    came to him while eating oatmeal alone.
    I can see him--drawing a spoon through the stuff, gazing into its glimmering furrows, muttering--and it occurs to me:
    maybe there is no sublime; only the shining of amnions tatters.
    For supper tonight I am going to have a baked potato left over from lunch.
    I am aware that a leftover baked potato is damp, slippery, and simultaneously gummy and crumbly,
    and therefore I am going to invite Patrick Kavanaugh to join me.


    - Galway Kinnell
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  19. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  20. TopTop #1272
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Rivers
    both my mother & I
    were born at 6th & I Sts.


    this river ebbs
    & flows
    ebbs & flows
    gets dredged for silt
    so boats can come up from the bay
    I remember
    being young, under 10
    crossing the highway
    (now boulevard)
    with my cousin (now dead)
    walking down to the bend
    where the freeway overpass
    now crosses the river
    we were sneaking away
    in search of hoboes
    —an exotic breed of adult
    we found an old campfire
    with cans opened, charred
    by the river
    this abandoned campsite
    —proof
    I sat on a log there
    my blood flowing faster
    it was the first time
    I saw the river
    (it was called "the river" then)
    wild


    this river runs salty
    reflects this town
    clearly
    it can't help it
    something about the sun's magic
    as salt crystals pick up mooncasts
    we hear croaking frogs
    chirping crickets
    birds, boats, barges
    trucks with their hay bales piled high
    honk as they turn onto the boulevard
    at the top of the bay


    the tide rises
    the tide falls
    & though this river has no inland source
    old Heraclitus' principle
    still applies here
    —the constant motion
    equally at home in the town at its margins


    I remember
    the whale who visited Petaluma
    in my mother's last week
    people were trying to turn it back to sea
    no, the whale wanted to see
    to make this connection
    before it died
    & it did
    & it disappeared the day she died
    I always suspected my mother's complicity
    having been her Jonah


    - Bill Vartnaw
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  21. TopTop #1273
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The 66th Apple Blossom Parade, 2012


    The whole town seemed over-exposed in bright
    new sunlight on the day of the Apple
    Blossom parade. We stood four-thick watching
    our children in uniform marching bands
    pass by, the shined up fire trucks throwing
    handfuls of bright candy, and the old men,
    who continually ride their old tractors
    or apple sprayers down the parade route.
    Arcs of water spray out of old machines
    that once carried lead and arsenic to
    keep an orchard clean of unwanted pests
    and the hot parade watchers beg for it.


    All along the parade route the alate
    woman appears. She spreads her golden wings
    and dances next to the marching band. Then,
    re-appears in front of the fire truck.
    We laugh at her. Shoo her off. Think her a
    fool. But she returns, dancing and smiling.


    When the parade stops, we gather children.
    The streets are swept. We go home to fallow
    fields still freckled with unpruned trees still warm
    from sunburns, still thinking of what’s passed us
    by as the fog rolls in and sedates us.


    - Iris Jamahl Dunkle
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  22. Gratitude expressed by:

  23. TopTop #1274
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Weathering

    Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face
    catches the wind off the snow-line and flushes
    with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well:
    that was a metropolitan vanity,
    wanting to look young for ever to pass.

    I was never a Pre- Raphaelite beauty,
    nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy
    men who need to be seen with passable women.
    but now that I am in love with a place
    which doesn’t care how I look, or if I’m happy,

    happy is how I look, and that’s all.
    My hair will turn grey in any case,
    my nails chip and flake, my waist thicken,
    and the years work all their usual changes.
    If my face is to be weather-beaten as well

    that’s little enough lost, a fair bargain
    for a year among lakes and fells, when simply
    to look out my window at the high pass
    makes me indifferent to mirrors and to what
    my soul may wear over its new complexion.

    - Fleur Adcock
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  24. Gratitude expressed by:

  25. TopTop #1275
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Ode to the Artichoke


    The tender-hearted
    artichoke
    got dressed as a warrior,
    erect, built
    a little cupola,
    stood
    impermeable
    under
    its scales,
    around it
    the crazy vegetables
    bristled,
    grew
    astonishing tendrils,
    cattails, bulbs,
    in the subsoil
    slept the carrot
    with its red whiskers,
    the grapevine
    dried the runners
    through which it carries the wine,
    the cabbage
    devoted itself
    to trying on skirts,
    oregano
    to perfuming the world,
    and the gentle
    artichoke
    stood there in the garden,
    dressed as a warrior,
    burnished
    like a pomegranate,
    proud,
    and one day
    along with the others
    in large willow
    baskets, it traveled
    to the market
    to realize its dream:
    the army.
    Amid the rows
    never was it so military
    as at the fair,
    men
    among the vegetables
    with their white shirts
    were
    marshals
    of the artichokes,
    the tight ranks,
    the voices of command,
    and the detonation
    of a falling crate,
    but
    then
    comes
    Maria
    with her basket,
    picks
    an artichoke,
    isn't afraid of it,
    examines it, holds it
    to the light as if it were an egg,
    buys it,
    mixes it up
    in her bag
    with a pair of shoes,
    with a head of cabbage and a
    bottle
    of vinegar
    until
    entering the kitchen
    she submerges it in a pot.
    Thus ends
    in peace
    the career
    of the armored vegetable
    which is called artichoke,
    then,
    scale by scale
    we undress
    its delight
    and we eat
    the peaceful flesh
    of its green heart.


    - Pablo Neruda
    (translated by Stephen Mitchell)








    Oda a la Alcachofa por Pablo Neruda


    La alcachofa
    de tierno corazón
    se vistió de guerrero,
    erecta, construyó
    una pequeña cúpula,
    se mantuvo
    impermeable
    bajo
    sus escamas,
    a su lado,
    los vegetales locos
    se encresparon,
    se hicieron
    zarcillos, espadañas,
    bulbos conmovedores,
    en el subsuelo
    durmió la zanahoria
    de bigotes rojos,
    la viña
    resecó los sarmientos
    por donde sube el vino,
    la col
    se dedicó
    a probarse faldas,
    el orégano
    a perfumar el mundo,
    y la dulce
    alcachofa
    allí en el huerto,
    vestida de guerrero,
    bruñida
    como una granada,
    orgullosa,
    y un día
    una con otra
    en grandes cestos
    de mimbre, caminó
    por el mercado
    a realizar su sueño:
    la milicia.
    En hileras
    nunca fue tan marcial
    como en la feria,
    los hombres
    entre las legumbres
    con sus camisas blancas
    eran
    mariscales
    de las alcachofas,
    las filas apretadas,
    las voces de comando,
    y la detonación
    de una caja que cae,
    pero
    entonces
    viene
    María
    con su cesto,
    escoge
    una alcachofa,
    no le teme,
    la examina, la observa
    contra la luz como si fuera un huevo,
    la compra,
    la confunde
    en su bolsa
    con un par de zapatos,
    con un repollo y una
    botella
    de vinagre
    hasta
    que entrando a la cocina
    la sumerge en la olla.
    Así termina
    en paz
    esta carrera
    del vegetal armado
    que se llama alcachofa,
    luego
    escama por escama
    desvestimos
    la delicia
    y comemos
    la pacífica pasta
    de su corazón verde.
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  26. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  27. TopTop #1276
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    To be of use


    The people I love the best
    jump into work head first
    without dallying in the shallows
    and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
    They seem to become natives of that element,
    the black sleek heads of seals
    bouncing like half-submerged balls.


    I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
    who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
    who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
    who do what has to be done, again and again.


    I want to be with people who submerge
    in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
    and work in a row and pass the bags along,
    who are not parlor generals and field deserters
    but move in a common rhythm
    when the food must come in or the fire be put out.


    The work of the world is common as mud.
    Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
    But the thing worth doing well done
    has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
    Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
    Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
    but you know they were made to be used.
    The pitcher cries for water to carry
    and a person for work that is real.


    - Marge Piercy
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  28. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  29. TopTop #1277
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Fish On


    The lure contains the barbed hook.
    No fish in his right mind would ever take that bait.
    But the hook is hidden, that's how it works.
    To satisfy some unmet need we take the bait.
    In the watery world of the heart,
    even when the near invisible line is seen,
    we can't quite see it or grasp it for what it is.
    The illusion is so subtle; we get lead down a path.
    We're drawn away from the river of being present
    towards something that appears to be nourishment, relief, distraction and
    in our hungry desperation we go unconscious and bite.
    Astonishingly, we return for more, over and over.


    We travel with the hook set in our jaw or our gut without even knowing it.
    No initial drag, just the illusion of satisfaction.
    Until the drag on the line causes resistance,
    then we thrash,
    we go down deeper into the water.
    No true understanding,
    rather a reactive flight away from the consequences of our mistake.
    Maybe I can break free if I make a run for it down stream,
    or jump and twist with righteous indignation.


    Slowly possibility and necessity insist on our breaking the habit of taking the bait.
    To remove the hook we must tear the fragile false flesh of shame and pride and, as D.H. Lawrence says,
    free ourselves from the endless repetition of the mistake.


    To be conscious of the hook, line and lure we must see with different eyes and we must be willing to endure the pain of removing the hook.
    We can get help, but our own hands must grasp the hook and pull it free.


    To feel, oh to feel, all of it, every twist and bend in the trap of the barbed hook.
    To alter our fishy habit of taking the bait takes skill and courage.
    The culmination of years of learning, in this all too human school for fish on a line.
    Fish on!




    - Alan Cohn
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  30. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  31. TopTop #1278
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The People Of The Other Village

    hate the people of this village
    and would nail our hats
    to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
    or staple our hands to our foreheads
    for refusing to salute them
    if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
    mix their flour at night with broken glass.
    We do this, they do that.
    They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
    We devein one of their sisters.
    The quicksand pits they built were good.
    Our amputation teams were better.
    We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
    They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
    They do this, we do that.
    We canceled our sheep imports.
    They no longer bought our blankets.
    We mocked their greatest poet
    and when that had no effect
    we parodied the way they dance
    which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God
    was leprous, hairless.
    We do this, they do that.
    Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
    (10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

    - Thomas Lux
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  32. Gratitude expressed by:

  33. TopTop #1279
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Olives


    Sometimes the taste of these strong olives cured slowly in oil,
    with cloves of garlic, bay leaves and chillies and lemon and salt,
    conjures a whiff of a bygone age: rocky crannies,
    goats, shade and the sound of pipes,
    in the tune of the breath of primeval times. The chill of a cave, a hidden cottage
    in a vineyard, a lodge in a garden, a slice of barley bread and well water.
    Your are from there. You have lost your way.
    Here is exile. Your death will come, and lay a knowing hand on your shoulder.
    Come, it’s time to go home.


    - Amos Oz
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  34. Gratitude expressed by:

  35. TopTop #1280
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Double Bubble

    I’m here to find a buyer for this house.

    I open the door to the garage to see
    Piled in a contemptuous heap
    Children’s stuff, a basinet
    Tiny clothes and Fisher-Price plastic

    A little pink sock with a ruffle
    That once wrapped a tiny foot
    A crib, the necessaries of caring
    For a stripling, a baby, to be cherished
    And protected until she can stand strong.

    Abandoned.

    The house is tortured. Beat up,
    Demolished and demoralized.
    The toilet, lights, electrical wire
    Removed.
    Door handles, drawer handles
    Wall sconce holders for candles
    Gone.

    The sad and obvious choice was made
    Steal everything from the house
    Fill the truck
    Pack a bag for the baby

    Crawling through the wreckage of other people’s life
    I patch together the money I need
    That keeps me from being one of them.

    The scattered ashes of passion
    The bubble in a bubble
    That once burst, burst twice
    Contained the soggy dust
    of a dream once lush
    like an oasis of hope

    The hope abides
    The oasis is dry

    - Jim Paschal
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  36. TopTop #1281
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Cloud Hidden


    This chapter is closed now,
    not one word more
    until we meet some day
    and the voices rising
    to the window
    take wing and fly.


    Open the old casement
    to the lands we have forgotten,
    look
    to the mountains and ridgeways
    and the steep valleys,
    quilted by green,
    here, as the last words fall away,
    the great and silent rivers of life
    are flowing into the oceans
    and on a day like any other
    they will carry you again,
    abandoned,
    on the currents you have fought,
    to the place
    you did not know
    you belonged.


    And just as you came into life
    surprised
    you go out again,
    lifted,
    cloud-hidden
    from one unknown
    to another
    and fall and turn
    and appear again in the mountains


    not remembering
    how in the beginning
    you refused
    to join,
    could not speak of,
    did not even know
    you were that
    deep
    calm
    welling
    almost forgotten
    spring
    of eternal presence.


    - David Whyte
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  37. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  38. TopTop #1282
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Missing the Boat


    It is not so much that the boat passed
    and you failed to notice it.
    It is more like the boat stopping
    directly outside your bedroom window,
    the captain blowing the signal-horn,
    the band playing a rousing march.
    The boat shouted, waving bright flags,
    its silver hull blinding in the sunlight.
    But you had this idea you were going by train.
    You kept checking the time-table,
    digging for tracks.
    And the boat got tired of you,
    so tired it pulled up the anchor
    and raised the ramp.
    The boat bobbed into the distance,
    shrinking like a toy—
    at which point you probably realized
    you had always loved the sea.




    - Naomi Shihab-Nye
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  39. Gratitude expressed by:

  40. TopTop #1283
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    I was born on a night when the wind


    I was born on a night when the wind tore a hole through the sky.

    I was raised by goatherds and learned the speech of owls from an old woman
    who walked her dogs across the green field.

    This explains nothing.

    “Look,” the old woman said. “Do you see that ragged place between the branches
    of the white pine? That’s the place the wind tore in the night when you were born.”

    And so I took to climbing trees. Hardly touched the ground for days at a time. Pressed my skin against their cool, rough skin, smelled the resinous pitch that smeared my arms and fingers, pulled green needles and tucked them in my hair like feathers. Like love tokens.

    Caught in the arms of pine or beech or oak, I was an angel, beloved of god. I was a lion in the dappled grass, a bird held in the hand of the lord of the mountain, the fire-eyed maker of mischief, king of the shadows.

    - Terry Ehret
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  41. Gratitude expressed by:

  42. TopTop #1284
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Morning Kitchen
    Life is too sweet, possibilities
    too huge.
    I stand in the morning kitchen stunned.
    In the last minute (minute!):
    taste of lemon, Keemun tea, cream
    (pause to consider how many miracles it took for lemon, tea, cream to end up in my avid hands)
    weight of dog ear, begging mystery eyes (animals live with us, how astonishing!)
    silky warm running water over cold hands (running water, enough said)
    hummingbird’s jeweled head at the feeder (is that her tongue? a hummingbird has a tongue!).

    Enough with the mystery, the grace.
    Time to bundle up, get busy, get to work.
    It is not to be.
    Lilly enters, simple marvel of daughter, taut with succulent life,
    sinks me like a stone in a wishing well.

    But what would I wish for?
    Nothing but this.


    - Jennifer Louden

    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  43. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  44. TopTop #1285
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Another Spring


    The seasons revolve and the years change
    With no assistance or supervision.
    The moon, without taking thought,
    Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.


    The white moon enters the heart of the river;
    The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
    Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
    Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.


    The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
    The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
    High in the sky the Northern Crown
    Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.


    O heart, heart, so singularly
    Intransigent and corruptible,
    Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
    And moments that should each last forever


    Slide unconsciously by us like water.


    - Kenneth Rexroth
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  45. Gratitude expressed by 3 members:

  46. TopTop #1286
    meherc's Avatar
    meherc
    Supporting member

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    This poem touched me to the core this day. Thank you for all of your postings. We need poetry. Especially taken by :


    "O heart, heart, so singularly
    Intransigent and corruptible,
    Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
    And moments that should each last forever


    Slide unconsciously by us like water.


    Quote Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson: View Post
    Another Spring


    The seasons revolve and the years change
    With no assistance or supervision.
    The moon, without taking thought,
    Moves in its cycle, full, crescent, and full.


    The white moon enters the heart of the river;
    The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
    Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
    Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.


    The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
    The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline night;
    High in the sky the Northern Crown
    Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.


    O heart, heart, so singularly
    Intransigent and corruptible,
    Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
    And moments that should each last forever


    Slide unconsciously by us like water.


    - Kenneth Rexroth
    Last edited by meherc; 05-06-2012 at 03:45 PM. Reason: additional comment
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  47. TopTop #1287
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    The Moon


    The moon can be taken in teaspoons
    or as a capsule every two hours.
    It is a good hypnotic or narcotic
    and also relieves
    hangovers of those drunk on philosophy.

    A piece of the moon tucked in the pocket
    is a better good luck charm than a rabbit’s foot;
    It works as a love charm,
    to get rich without connections
    and to ward off doctors.

    It can be given as a treat to children
    when they can’t sleep.
    A few moon drops in the eyes of the elderly
    help them die well.

    Put a tender new moon leaf
    under your pillow
    and you will see your heart’s desire.

    Always carry a small jar of moon air
    for when you are drowning,
    And give a key to the moon
    to prisoners and the disillusioned,
    to those condemned to death
    and those condemned to life.

    There is no better tonic than the moon
    given in precise, controlled doses.

    - Jaime Sabines (1926-99)
    (translation by Rebecca del Rio)




    La Luna


    La luna se puede tomar a cucharadas
    o como una cápsula cada dos horas.
    Es buena como hipnótico y sedante
    y también alivia
    a los que se han intoxicado de filosofía.
    Un pedazo de luna en el bolsillo
    es mejor amuleto que la pata de conejo:
    sirve para encontrar a quien se ama,
    para ser rico sin que lo sepa nadie
    y para alejar a los médicos y las clínicas.
    Se puede dar de postre a los niños
    cuando no se han dormido,
    y unas gotas de luna en los ojos de los ancianos
    ayudan a bien morir.


    Pon una hoja tierna de la luna
    debajo de tu almohada
    y mirarás lo que quieras ver.
    Lleva siempre un frasquito del aire de la luna
    para cuando te ahogues,
    y dale la llave de la luna
    a los presos y a los desencantados.
    Para los condenados a muerte
    y para los condenados a vida
    no hay mejor estimulante que la luna
    en dosis precisas y controladas.


    Jaime Sabines (1926-1999)
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  48. Gratitude expressed by 2 members:

  49. TopTop #1288
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    crawl space

    when he was led away
    his comforters thought
    of his steps

    in forests of violet rose
    & live grenades at his back
    & branches random & sharp

    pages he wrote in code
    hidden & never found


    sausage he craved with cheese


    & azure pencil with note

    remained in his bed of straw

    & his hands
    like clanging bells

    moved with him until death
    each finger mottled & soft
    more sacred than the last
    - Thaisa Frank
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  50. TopTop #1289
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Neighborhood Road Prayer


    May the patches in our gravel road
    Hold
    Through another season.


    Filled with road base mixture,
    Like an apology,
    each one,


    For slights imagined or real,
    what difference?
    Filled to over the brim


    More than you'd expect
    To be needed,
    Tamped solid with full heart


    Until at last, that satisfying - Thwack!
    And once again it is
    seamless


    As full
    forgiveness.


    - Scott O'Brien
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  51. Gratitude expressed by:

  52. TopTop #1290
    Larry Robinson's Avatar
    WaccoBB Poet Laureate

    Re: Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

    Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

    Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
    Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
    But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
    but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
    The summer mornings begin inch by inch
    while we sleep, and walk with us later
    as long-legged beauty through
    the dirty streets. It is no surprise
    that danger and suffering surround us.
    What astonishes is the singing.
    We know the horses are there in the dark
    meadow because we can smell them,
    can hear them breathing.
    Our spirit persists like a man struggling
    through the frozen valley
    who suddenly smells flowers
    and realizes the snow is melting
    out of sight on top of the mountain,
    knows that spring has begun.


    - Jack Gilbert
    | Login or Register (free) to reply publicly or privately   Email

  53. Gratitude expressed by:

Similar Threads

  1. Thank you Larry Robinson
    By JandA in forum WaccoReader
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 12-11-2009, 02:36 PM
  2. Poem of the day from Larry Robinson
    By Larry Robinson in forum Poetry and Prose
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 05-20-2008, 09:33 AM
  3. Poems from Larry Robinson
    By Larry Robinson in forum Poetry and Prose
    Replies: 34
    Last Post: 01-07-2007, 08:45 AM
  4. Measure F Precinct Walk with Larry Robinson
    By Portia in forum General Community
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 10-06-2006, 02:46 PM

Bookmarks